Before 8:30 am today I encountered at least four different references to the short-termism plaguing our policy, social interaction, and decision-making. A fifth lingered in my thoughts from a dinner last week. Determining the right time frame underlies every non-profit sector issue.

  • The first was in Jeffrey Sachs’ new book The Price of Civilization. He writes of “taking moral responsibility for the future, accepting the reality that our actions today will determine the fates of generations yet to live”. He also laments that “the time horizon of public deliberation in America has shrunk to an unimaginably brief scale.”
  • The second was at breakfast with an old friend and a new friend, both heavily engaged in US and European political and social issues, on the short-termism in US politics…and the impact on civil society.
  • The third was my effort to assess the quality of impact evaluation by myriad non-profit organizations. (See e.g. Mario Morino’s outstanding new book Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity). One fundamental question in impact analysis is determining how short- or long-term the vision of impact should be.
  • The fourth is a new web site by a fascinating London School of Economics project called Action for Happiness. With underlying economic research and some extraordinary intellectual fire power, the question of time frame of happiness persists.
  • The fifth was a dinner I was privileged to attend a few weeks ago with a prominent British author and educator, a well-known Buddhist leader, and a distinguished economist. A key part of the conversation there was the relationship between altruism and the economy and even the paradoxically selfish benefits of a word that the major dictionaries define primarily as “selflessness”. A recurring question at our table was how long one had to wait to see the benefits to oneself from altruism (specifically, whether children in today’s click click Angry Birds would have the required patience).

Several key warnings come to mind relating to my on-going theme of 20/20 foresight in the civil society sector and danger of short-termism.

  • Time frame for information feeding decision-making. The immediacy of the internet, smart phones, and other modern tools (even microwave ovens producing immediately hot steaming junk food) affects our capacity for effective decision-making. At the very least, information overload at warp speed clouds the quality of the information fed into the decision-making process. We simply cannot process it all and select the relevant, high quality input. Our output in terms of voting, organizational strategy, social policy, and indeed personal relationships all suffer from this poor information input. We must insist on a combined short-, medium-, and long-term perspective.
  • Time frame for planning. Crises such as the financial crisis tends to keep us focused on the immediate and jeopardize effective planning. Organizations are more focused on management of current and short-term questions such as the potential need to reduce staff or at least question hiring, meeting this year and next year’s budget, and immediate impact on beneficiaries. Donors are less likely to commit long-term given instability in the economic environment. It is essential to think longer term such that the current crisis doesn’t become chronic crisis.
  • Tight time frame for non-profit sector impact evaluation. The right time frame for impact evaluation varies among non-profit organizations and donors. It must include the short-, medium- and longer term. Time frame affects both the baseline question of assuring an organization isn’t doing harm and the more aspirational question of performance effectiveness. For example, a community center for underprivileged children may help feed and care for children now, but is the right question whether the children remain safe until alternative care becomes available? graduate from secondary school? remain productively employed throughout adult life? abstain from criminal activity or substance abuse?
  • Time frame for civil society engagement. The question of time frame seems markedly absent from the current debates on civic engagement (even David Cameron’s “Big Society”). Focus on the short-term (the next election? the transfer of a service from government to volunteers?) can do medium- to long-term harm. We must heed Jeffrey Sachs’ critical view and resist short-termism irrespective of the political consequences and the touch choices, starting with how we raise and educate our children. Until we figure out the medium-term and long-term goals of Big Society, we shouldn’t be playing with the short-term.

As always, comments, questions, and requests for client information are welcome.

Copyright 2011 Susan Liautaud. All rights reserved